For decades, educators have worried that television, calculators, video games, and social media could weaken young people’s intellectual habits. But the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) presents something more serious: the abstraction of thought itself.
We are now facing the problem of mental retardation among students due to misuse of generative AI in educational work. This problem is not an imaginary one. It is already seen in classes, consultations, exams, and oral defenses in all universities. Many students are increasingly unable to comprehend readings, form coherent arguments, analyze in-depth evidence, or answer complex questions in real time without the help of AI systems.
What is happening is deeply moving. Students are increasingly using generative AI systems to produce essays, reports, presentations, reasoning, and research results without acquiring sufficient knowledge of their subject, basic concepts, and intellectual skills. The machine generates feedback while the student goes through the difficult but necessary learning task.
This phenomenon is best understood not simply as “abuse of AI” but as cognitive surrender. Recent research suggests that human cognition is increasingly triadic: System 1, intuition; Program 2, deliberate thinking; and, System 3, artificial intelligence. Under conditions of cognitive commitment, people bypass critical thinking and use AI-generated results as their own with minimal processing. Rather than using AI as a tool, they surrender cognitive agency to it.
This is very different from using calculators or search engines. Researchers have found that when people interact with artificial intelligence systems, they tend to use the AI’s results even if those results are incorrect. Users became more confident simply because the AI was there – even when the AI produced the wrong answers. Participants with high reliance on AI and low motivation for active thinking were more likely to compromise their judgment. Cognitive commitment continued even when participants were rewarded for accuracy and given feedback.
Intellectual devotion is prevalent among students. This directly undermines the intellectual skills that the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) expects colleges and universities to cultivate among Filipino graduates. CHED expects higher education institutions to produce students with critical thinking and analytical skills, creative thinking, effective communication, and lifelong learning.
Critical thinking and analysis require students to examine evidence, identify fallacies, challenge assumptions, and develop logical arguments. Intellectual commitment weakens these skills because students increasingly accept externally generated thinking without engaging in discussion.
Creative thinking also suffers. Creativity comes from struggle, synthesis, experimentation, and reflection. Students who give ideas and ideas to external sources are missing out on opportunities to build these skills.
Effective communication breaks down when students deliver fluent AI-generated messages that they can’t defend themselves verbally. Even lifelong learning is at risk because lifelong learners must have the capacity to learn independently, to question appropriately and to adapt. Students who are used to getting quick AI answers may lose these habits.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable question is why this continues despite mounting evidence of harm. There is a lot of money to be made in AI. Companies compete fiercely for users, subscribers, market share, and investment. Exhibitors, retailers, and investors all benefit from widespread discovery. Society is increasingly hearing that AI is revolutionary and inevitable.
This is similar to earlier times when dangerous products were ruthlessly developed before the public was fully aware of their effects.
What should be done?
First, we must clearly acknowledge that mental retardation related to AI reproductive abuse is a serious and growing problem.
Second, schools must ensure supervised periods of reading, writing, discussion, and assessment without AI access to productivity so that students can strengthen basic intellectual skills. In particular, rigorous training in critical thinking should be provided to all students.
Third, the use of AI among young people must be carefully regulated within educational settings and carefully governed in society.
Finally, generative AI systems should display clear warnings for students: these systems are not primarily designed to improve student learning, academic mastery, or academically sound work. Use for educational purposes should only occur under qualified supervision.
This issue is urgent because the graduates entering the workforce this year – the graduating class of 2026 – are the first group to have spent almost their entire university years dealing with productive AI. The danger is not only that these graduates know little. The danger is that they have continuously sacrificed the cognitive processes necessary to know anything deeply at all.
It’s not too late. But we must first stop pretending that there are no difficulties. Then we have to take decisive action before mental dedication destroys the entire education system and the future of our youth along with it.
Dr. Benito Teehankee is a Full Professor in the Department of Management and Organization at De La Salle University. He is the chairman of the Responsible AI Council of the Analytics and the AI Association of the Philippines. He also chairs the Joint Succession Committee of the Management Association of the Philippines.
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